In HALO1, as you already know, Keyes is held captive by Covenant. When rescued he tells his troops, that he “overheard the guards talking” and knows the Covenant plans. How does he know their language? Training? Find that a little odd. Just a thought.
In Glasslands we know that Elites and Humans can speak eachothers language.
Is it so hard to believe that just a few months prior that Keys could understand the Elites.
I mean, his translation was a bit off anyway.
“Fate of the Universe”? More like Fate of half a Galaxy.
It’s more likely that the guards were Grunts, which we know are able to speak English.
Would it be equally hard to believe that his implant would have a translator?
That’s another good possibility, he was a high rank.
> In Glasslands we know that Elites and Humans can speak eachothers language.
>
> Is it so hard to believe that just a few months prior that Keys could understand the Elites.
>
> I mean, his translation was a bit off anyway.
> “Fate of the Universe”? More like Fate of half a Galaxy.
Very wrong. In Glasslands we learn that an intellectual has studies Sangheili culture and language for his career and is able to understand, read and speak Sangheili. The rest of them, without tech, cannot. Equally so Elites cannot understand English well without tech as we see with Jul while imprisoned on the ship.
Thus, no it is hard to believe. That said, Keyes has a neural implant and perhaps held onto some other tech to translate the language. Or, as someone else had said, the grunts were speaking English.
He kinda translated it wrong anyway, getting ‘weapon’ confused with ‘holy ring that will send us into the divine beyond’.
> He kinda translated it wrong anyway, getting ‘weapon’ confused with ‘holy ring that will send us into the divine beyond’.
that drives me nuts every time…
he clearly says its a weapon… then it turns out in the second game to be a religious gateway type thingy…
> It’s more likely that the guards were Grunts, which we know are able to speak English.
Grunt gaurds on the TaR? No, im pretty sure he was refering to Elites. The grunts are mostly for bulk
> > He kinda translated it wrong anyway, getting ‘weapon’ confused with ‘holy ring that will send us into the divine beyond’.
>
> that drives me nuts every time…
>
> he clearly says its a weapon… then it turns out in the second game to be a religious gateway type thingy…
In the first game, Cortana says that the ring has some sort of religious significance to the Covenant.
First of all Glasslands isn’t the first piece of Halo fiction that talks about both the humans and Covenant studying and understanding each others’ languages.
Also, transcript from Halopedia:
> Keyes: “While the Covenant had us locked up in here, I overheard the guards talking about this ring world. They call it… ‘Halo’.”
>
> Cortana (COM): “One moment, sir. Accessing the Covenant Battlenet. (Pause) According to the data in their networks, the ring has some kind of deep religious significance. If I’m analyzing this correctly, they believe that “Halo” is some kind of weapon. One with vast, unimaginable power.”
>
> Keyes: “And it’s true… The Covenant kept saying that whoever controls Halo controls the fate of the universe.”
>
> Cortana (COM): “Now I see… I have intercepted a number of messages about a Covenant search team, scouting for a “control room”. I thought they were looking for the bridge of a cruiser that I damaged during the battle above the ring. But they must be looking for Halo’s control room.”
>
> Keyes: “That’s bad news. If Halo is a weapon, and the Covenant gain control of it, they’ll use it against us and wipe out the entire human race.” (Pause) “Chief, Cortana. I have a new mission for you. We need to beat the Covenant to Halo’s control room. Marines! (points to the exit) Let’s move!”
So long as his implant could slow down voices and play them in reverse, he’s in good hands. For the “wort” part, at least.
I epect that eventually automatic translation software for common covenant laguanges got pretty good and was implemented into everyone’s implants/earpieces, or at least for the more important people (higher ranked individuals, spartans blah blah).
I think the best explanation is that his guards were Grunts. Even if Keyes does have an electronic edition of Webster’s “Blarg Blarg to English” dictionary stored in his implant, Grunts are probably more likely to talk in front of the prisoner.